The 2023 exhibition Stop.Motion placed sculpture at the centre of Carlos’s practice after more than two decades focused mainly on painting.
Presented by Galeria Paloma in Manila, the exhibition also included colourful canvases and animated versions of paintings motion-designed by IJ Cacnio.
Resin and steel holding a moment of action
Carlos began making sculpture during the 1980s, before becoming a full-time artist.
He used resin to build body, surface and layered form, while steel provided an internal structure capable of holding a figure in the middle of movement.
His subjects included fishermen, vendors, bullfighters and other people at work, as well as parents and children.
The figures were designed to avoid the stillness of conventional statues. Gesture, balance and the direction of the body suggested an action continuing beyond the frozen instant.
Work, family and gratitude
Carlos described labour through pride and cooperation rather than exhaustion alone.
Family groups similarly focused on affection and shared experience.
These ideas paralleled the artist’s paintings, whose bright colour and accessible scenes encouraged viewers to notice ordinary moments of joy.
His early sculptural career developed with support from his wife, who operated Galeria Mia and encouraged him to show a work to clients. The positive response led him to devote more time to the medium.
Stop.Motion connected that early history with the artist’s later public identity.
The exhibition’s title captured the central contradiction of sculpture: material remains still, but the form can preserve energy, work and emotion at the point just before movement resumes.